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Laptop display issue screen blank

I seem to have broken my laptop. I was trying to hook it up to a tv with an HDMI cable. Following the advice on a website I went to "Adjust screen resolution" to try and find the tv as another device and enable that. However there was no other device, so I decided to play around a bit to see if I could get something to , this was my mistake. On one of the drop down menus under the resolution menu I managed to select something which created a second device in the box showing how many displays you have. I was pretty sure it wasn't the tv but thought I'd keep playing around and on one of the other drop down menus I selected something like "expand across both displays"...said soemthing like that, and then that's when the laptop went blank, still a backlight coming from it but nothing but black on screen. I restarted the laptop, the screen showed up the windows starting stuff then the desktop flickered on for barely a second then it went back to blank screen. I can only guess I've created an imaginary device with obviously no display and this is what it is showing now when it's blank.

Hope this makes sense to someone else, not sure it does to me, I really shouldn't mess about with technology.

With some advice from someone else I tried toggling with the fn f buttons, f5 was the only thing that did anything but it just toggles from a light black to a dark black, as it would be if it were turned off. I have tried starting it in safe mode but it doesn't give me the same options, it only has Display - (default monitor) on. When I attach it to the monitor from my pc using the vga cable nothing at all happens, the monitor just says no signal input.

A Windows "System Restore" run from within Safe Mode should sort that out for you. If you don't know how to get to it then you'll find it under Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> System Restore. Choose the most recent restore point when everything was working fine.

"....I tried system restore.....it just says "system restore could not start"

Alternatively you may have better luck if you try the version of System Restore that runs outside of Windows. You get to it by pressing F8 at startup but instead you choose the "Repair your computer" option. Go through the various screens and you'll eventually get to System Restore.

"Alternatively you may have better luck if you try the version of System Restore that runs outside of Windows. You get to it by pressing F8 at startup but instead you choose the "Repair your computer" option. Go through the various screens and you'll eventually get to System Restore."

*"Ok so you can see the laptop screen in safemode but nothing on laptop screen and external monitor in normal mode?
Try
uninstalling the graphics driver in safe mode
reboot to normal mode windows should find and reinstall the graphics drivers and hopefully put you back to normal."*

Yep that is the problem, how would I uninstal the graphics driver? Is that safe enough yeah?

Would booting in "Directory services restore mode" sort the problem even if it meant removing what's on the computer? I don't mind that, there's not much on it I need to keep and can back up easily in safe mode.

I decided to try opening with "enable low resolution video" as it said it you could change screen resolution and that's where I had made the original mistake, it opened the desktop with a very low res, but allowed me to go to adjust screen resolution and remove the second display i had set up, i've restarted and it's working fine now, thanks for all your help.

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